Went out to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End on Friday. alenxa wore her pirate costume again (previous versions at last year’s Pirates and, in a more appropriate setting, on the deck of the H.M.S. Surprise). We got to the Irvine Spectrum around 6:15, and ended up about 30 feet from the front of the line for the 8:30 showing. We had pizza from the food court, and later chocolate chip cookies from Donna B’s.
Since some moron genius decided to chop the courtyard in front of the movie theater in half and put in more shops (have they filled the shops in the last expansion, yet?), the theater has had to get a little creative in finding room for lines. Ours started between California Pizza Kitchen and P.F. Chang’s. Being off in the corner, we only got to see the pirates in our own line.
Anyway, the movie was a lot of fun. My main objection was that it got hard to keep track of all the double-, triple-, and quadruple-crosses. Despite what the reviewer for the L.A. Times thinks, it doesn’t require intimate knowledge of the previous films. All you have to know are who the major players are, and how they stand in relation to each other. You can do that by seeing the other films once while sober.
It let out around 11:30, and we went looking for a place that was still open to get something to drink. We stopped at Coffee Bean, where we discovered all the employees were dressed up as pirates. The guy at the counter was impressed with Katie’s costume, saying she was the first serious pirate they’d had all night (I guess they all stayed closer to the theater?) and gave us our drinks for free.
Thursday: Disneyland — for the first time in maybe 5 years. There are definite advantages to visiting in the off-season, during a weekday… like the 5-minute wait for Pirates of the Caribbean. Thankfully, the changes to align it with the movies were minimally invasive, and the last view of Jack Sparrow demonstrates some seriously impressive motion capture. Some other nice updates to Haunted Mansion and Jungle Cruise. The new “wildest ride in the wilderness!” recording at Big Thunder Mountain, however, is a travesty. Splash Mountain and the train were closed. They seem to be piratifying Tom Sawyer’s island. Pirates, Indy and Big Thunder kept breaking down, but we still managed to hit all three (some of them twice). It was odd to see fruit carts all over the place. It’s actually possible to eat mostly healthy food at Disneyland now. Finished off the day with dinner at the Blue Bayou.
